Colombia's president says boat struck by US was carrying Colombians
www.bbc.com

... Colombian President Gustavo Petro has said that a boat recently bombed by the US was "Colombian with Colombian citizens inside", an allegation the White House called "baseless".

The US has struck at least four vessels in the Caribbean in recent weeks, killing 21 people. The US government has said the strikes in international waters were targeting "narco-traffickers".

But it has not provided evidence or details about who or what is aboard, and the strikes have attracted condemnation in countries in the region amid concerns they breach international law.

The US Senate rejected a measure on Wednesday that would have barred President Donald Trump from using military force against the boats.

Petro replied to a post on X by US Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat, who said he would vote to block strikes against vessels in the Caribbean as some lawmakers sought to challenge the use of the armed forces in Congress.

The Colombian president said that a "new war scenario has opened up: the Caribbean".

Petro added that "indications show that the last boat bombed was Colombian with Colombian citizens inside it.

"I hope their families come forward and report it. There is no war against smuggling; there is a war for oil and it must be stopped by the world. The aggression is against all of Latin America and the Caribbean." ...

Did a New US Drone Strike Off Venezuela Kill 2 Trinidadians? What Family Says
www.military.com

.. The mother of a fisherman in Trinidad and Tobago says her 26-year-old son was among six people killed Tuesday in the Trump administration's fifth drone stroke on boats off the coast of Venezuela.

Lenore Burnley told the Miami Herald that her son Chad "Charpo" Joseph was hitching a ride back to Trinidad from Venezuela when he was killed. She said she learned about his death after "somebody called us."

"He was on his way back," she said. He had been in the South America nation for the past three months, she said, where "he had friends and we have some relatives over there."

Burnley and other relatives of Joseph, who was from the fishing community of Las Cuveas in Trinidad, said he wasn't a trafficker. The other man has been identified only as Samaroo.

"Wickedness," Cornell Clement, Joseph's grandfather, told Port-of-Spain based CNC3 television station in reference to the United States' method. "What you killing the people children for?...It not supposed to be that way." ...